Are Poinsettias Really Poisonous?
note, when I receive any email that begs/demands/pleads that I send it to everyone I know, the red flag pops and my cynical side becomes activated. The truth is, poinsettias are NOT poisonous, according to the poison index system (POISINDEX) and SNOPES.com, the urban legend debunker web site. What’s really fascinating is that the myth started almost 100 years ago in Hawaii. A child of an Army officer stationed there died of poisoning, and the poinsettia plant was incorrectly linked to the poor child’s death. As there was obviously no internet nor email system back then, the myth was propagated verbally and in print. The so-called grapevine of communication really does work. No deaths have ever been attributed to poinsettia plants since then. And as SNOPES points out, a fifty pound child would have to eat more than 1.25 pounds of the plant (between 500 and 600 leaves!) to exceed just the experimental dose set by the POINSINDEX. It’s unlikely that a child would eat more than one leaf, as
